


Some Desperate Glory

by Muffinworry



Category: Secret History - Donna Tartt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-27 09:50:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18736636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Muffinworry/pseuds/Muffinworry
Summary: She was a goddess once. There’s nothing more to be said.





	Some Desperate Glory

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pinkcupboardwitch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkcupboardwitch/gifts).



> For a_verysmallviolet, who requested The Secret History, and fencing

***

_En garde_

*

When she mentions that she and Charles had fencing lessons once upon a time, Julian is delighted. She understands that it fits perfectly with the image he has of them, of her. A sun-dappled childhood, lazy afternoons in the southern heat, a tumbledown house, vast and secretive. Genteel poverty and peeling paint. Bare feet. Fireflies. It’s as good a past as any, she decides, and lets her drawl thicken. Behind Henry, she sees Charles lift his eyes heavenward, but she knows he’ll support her. He always does.

Bunny, of course, won’t let it drop. Let’s see you fight, he says later, go on, it’ll be fun. All those movies where a duel ends in someone’s clothes being dramatically cut off. She snaps her book shut and stalks off before she can see his reaction.

In front of her mirror that night, she draws herself up and takes a careful stance.

*

_Prêt_

*

Nobody actually says, let’s do it. It comes to all of them, listening to Julian and the visions he conjures up for them, like a shared dream ( _folie à deux, isn’t that what the Frogs call it?_ Bunny will say. _Folie à cinq, more like_ ). Nonetheless, it’s very clearly Henry who’s going to be in charge of the preparations. The wine is easy, although trying to give it an authentic smoky flavour only results in broken bottles in Francis’s fireplace, and Charles cutting his hand. The sheets, well, every classics student has worn a chiton or a toga at least once. Camilla weaves crowns out of whatever leaves she can find, and Francis steams fragrant herbs for them to inhale, according to Henry’s rather dubious research.

“We’re lucky the woods are so close,” says Charles, and Francis snorts. “I can’t see anyone trying it in some city college, can you? Or…on a beach? Palm trees?” They all look at each other, and silently agree that Richard can’t possibly, at least, not yet.

*

She hasn’t eaten in two days, like the rest of the supplicants, and her eyes see sparks whenever she moves her head too quickly. Her legs wobble, and it would be so much easier to sink down and rest. Richard is asking something about her plans for tonight, his voice too-casual. She holds herself straight, the lies Hermes-quick and easy on her tongue as always, her whole body quivering. Divinity requires sacrifice.

Bunny shakes his head and slips away, and they decide as one that it’s better without him.

*

So. Here is wine, and chanting, and a fire. The blood is pounding in her ears, and her heels are drumming as she spins barefoot, holding her thyrsus and pointing it at each of the boys in turn. There are hands, gentle, unpinning the once-white sheets, and there are mouths, gentler still.

It’s not enough.

Francis says nothing afterwards, just looks at his long fingers joined in his lap, his shoulders tense with disappointment. Charles is staring at the sky, and Camilla reaches over to pluck the cigarette from his lips.

We try again, says Henry, the only one of them who seems unbothered.

And they do.

*

_Allez_

*

It turns out that gentleness had been the problem. The deity they’ve been calling to wants neither softness nor hesitation. Whatever combination of drink and drug and sex has crystallized into raw, alchemical belief. She runs howling through the woods, yelps echoing through the darkness all around her, and she spurs them on. She is _Potnia theron_ now, mistress of animals, and her feet are unmarked, her body effortless and light as she barks and shrieks and cries to the moon. There’s blood on her teeth, and between her thighs, and Camilla throws her head back and screams in utter ecstasy.

It’s less than six hours later that it shatters, and the shock of finding herself back in her mortal shell is unspeakable. Literally. She doesn’t struggle to get the words out; she doesn’t even try. She was a goddess once. There’s nothing more to be said.

*

She hadn’t thought about the complications. It’s absurd, in retrospect, but there it is. They were going to live forever. She and Charles have always danced with truth and bent it to their will, but the sheer weight of this secret grows heavier and heavier until her shoulders ache and her arms are trembling with the effort of keeping it up. She smokes too much, and escapes back to her books whenever she can, which isn’t often enough.

When Bunny starts to act strangely, especially to Henry, it becomes clear that something has to be done. One incautious word, a phone left ringing, a door opened at the wrong time – and his point will strike home.

Camilla will turn herself sideways, make herself a smaller target. They’re at war now.

*

And then it’s done, and she may be polluted, defiled, but it no longer matters. She’s safe. Charles is safe. Henry needs her, and Henry has never thought he needed anyone in his life before. They speak to each other in old, old words, and delight in how they shine against the heavy, leaden, sluggish police and teachers and the other students: dull, dull, dull people.

She begins to lie to her brother, for the first time, and shocks herself at how naturally it comes.

Charles becomes demanding, frightening, fault lines running deeper through him than any of them suspected. Henry and Francis and Richard throw their protection around her, layer upon layer of concern and affection. She thinks of Tullia, suffocating under the weight of all those shields. A bloodless end. She betrayed Charles, and she can’t seem to care as much as she should.

She wonders when the last time she felt anything was. Camilla watches herself with distant interest as she lights a cigarette, takes a slow breath, and puts it out on her inner arm.


End file.
